Standards

Information Retrieval and the ASIS Standards Committee

by Mark Needleman

As many people are aware, the 1994 version of Z39.50, the ANSI/NISO protocol
for information retrieval, has been under development by the Z39.50 Implementors
Group (ZIG) for several years. This new version adds many features and
enhancements to the 1992 version of the protocol while keeping functionality
backwardly compatible with it. Most of the new features added to the standard
were the result of two factors: the experience gained by implementors building
real-world systems using the earlier version and the need to meet requirements of
the larger community using Z39.50 for additional functionality to handle the
larger set of services those real-world systems support. Among the new services
added are a SCAN facility, a SORT facility, an EXPLAIN facility that provides a
standardized mechanism within the protocol for clients to learn about the
characteristics of servers they are connecting to, and an EXTENDED SERVICES
facility that allows the initiation of services within the Z39.50 session that
will then be accomplished outside of the protocol itself.

Some of the extended services include requesting document delivery, mailing
and printing of result sets, initiating and scheduling periodic queries, and
database update. Other functionality that has been added in this new version
includes support for larger record sizes and additional record transfer syntaxes.

The new version of Z39.50-1994 was recently sent to NISO's voting members for
ballot. Thus, ASIS had the opportunity to comment and vote on the revised
version. Below are the comments that the ASIS Standards Committee, acting on
behalf of the ASIS membership, sent into NISO on Z39.50-1994.

ASIS Comments on Z39.50-1994

Having seen in draft format the ballot comments entered by the Library of
Congress (LC), ASIS wishes to support all of the technical and editorial points
made by LC and assumes that since those comments were an attempt to
systematically go through the standard and correct both editorial errors and
detailed technical errors and confusions, those comments will be incorporated
into the final version of the standard.

ASIS also wishes to express serious concern about the complexities and
interoperability problems that have been introduced into version 3. These
comments echo those made by other voting members. The standard has become
unnecessarily complex and confusing, and it is difficult for potential
implementors to understand which portions of the document represent real required
implementation and which do not.

The document has confused protocol with the data formats used by the
protocol. What should be in the standard is the protocol. Many of the things,
especially in the appendices, such as data formats, the defined extended
services, element specification formats, variant sets and tag sets, do not need
to be documented in the base standard. Z39.50 uses a registration model. Those
things should be registered outside the standard, and the standard should
describe how information on registered formats can be obtained, which it does not
currently do.

If the data formats are of sufficiently broad utility, they should be
considered for standardization through NISO in its own right, much as Z39.2 has
been. MARC is not defined in Z39.50; it is not clear why GRS is. In addition
some of the formats, especially GRS and the variant and tag specifications, are
not sufficiently mature that they should be registered at all, let alone directly
in the base document. At this point, they would be better left at an
experimental level until further experience can be obtained with them and there
is more of an understanding of the potential interoperability problems they may
have. The immaturity of these features is evident in the particularly opaque
descriptions of these features and the debates among current implementors of
these features themselves about how to interpret material in the standard and use
these features.

Another example is the Extended Services facility. The description of
the facility does belong in the base document; nor should the definitions of the
extended services be included until there is more of an understanding of which of
them really represent a core service that will be widely implemented. Due to
historical considerations and probably because of its special nature, the BIB-1
and EXPLAIN material is probably an exception to the above comments and needs to
remain in the base document.

Evidently, one of the basic design decisions made in developing version 3
was that it be entirely back compatible and interoperable with version 2. The
complexity and cost of this decision are painfully evident in the version 3
standard. ASIS suggests that this not be a design assumption for future versions
and that efforts be made wherever possible to streamline and simplify things in
future versions of the protocol.

Having made the above comments, ASIS also recognizes that a lot of work
went into developing version 3 and that many of the new features bring the
standard a higher level of functionality than was possible in the 1992 version.
In addition the community is waiting for version 3 to be stabilized. But more
important perhaps are those in other communities who are evaluating Z39.50 as a
potential usable standard who may decide to bypass it for other protocol
solutions if they feel that the process by which the standard gets stabilized is
too cumbersome and time consuming.

Thus, ASIS, in spite of the above technical comments, reluctantly votes
Yes with the hope that many, if not all, of the issues detailed here (and perhaps
in other ballot comments) will be addressed either in ancillary documents or in
the next version of the standard which is expected to start development once
version 3 is approved.

Mark Needleman, chair of the ASIS Standards Committee, works in the University of
California Department of Library Automation.

Voting on NISO Z39.14

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) is currently seeking
comments on a draft revision to the American National Standard for Writing
Abstracts (ANSI/NISO Z39.14). The proposed revised standard gives guidance to
authors or editors of abstracts that represent the content of texts reporting on
the results of experimental or investigative work (informative abstracts) or
descriptive or discursive studies (indicative or combined indicative-informative
abstracts). The guidance is applicable to all conventional forms of abstracts
and such unconventional ones as structured abstracts.

The ASIS Standards Committee is currently reviewing the proposed revisions
and will cast its ballot on behalf of the ASIS membership before the March 15
deadline. Any ASIS member who would like to provide comments on the basis of a
careful review of the proposal is invited to contact Mark Needleman, chair of the
ASIS Standards Committee, by e-mail: Mark.Needleman@ucop.edu or through ASIS
headquarters.